When he stumbled back up the hill with the bags Marcy was still there. We gotta go, he said.
What did you get?
Dog food. Antibiotics. Water dechlorinator– if we find swimming pools– Marcy, we have to get out of here. They were… He caught himself crying. They were–
I know, she said.
The Fisherman’s Daughter
In Puerto Princesa the guard at the resort gate had an M16 with the blacking worn off. A kind smile. He made 50 cents an hour and they posted him by the road. When Abu Sayyaf took you they approached from the beach. They drove speedboats up the coast from the south; he’d read about it. If they came the guard would have to hear the disturbance 200 yards away. Run to the beach, fight off five men with AK-47s by himself. 50 cents an hour. That’s assuming the boats weren’t already halfway back to Basilan where they kept the video equipment dry for the beheading. The hotel came at a significant discount but the desk girl still charged him for an upgrade. We need it sir, she said. No more Westerners now because of the terrorist. She had studied hospitality. Hoped to work in California. You’d be like a movie star there, he said. The men will go crazy for you.
Her laugh was perfect. It didn’t quite accept his premise but didn’t make him feel stupid for trying. I don’t know about that, sir.
You would have many men fighting over you. Malibog, he almost said, but didn’t know what it meant in the Palawan dialect, or which Palawan dialect she spoke. In Tagalog it was “horny.” In Visayan “riled up”, which was what he meant. Many men, he said instead, which seemed worse. He was blushing.
Thank you sir, she said. If you need something I am Joy.
In his room white lizards looked back from the ceiling. He masturbated to Joy on their wedding night. Giving her their first child of many. Her eyes full of totally benevolent love. He was almost asleep when the lizards started screaming.
**
The next night, when he came back from the underground river tour, she was at the desk again. It was teak, modeled after a Polynesian ship. Do you like the river, she asked. Yes, he had; he had seen cave swallows. Some kind of wild jungle turkey digging a hollow for its nest. Unusual terns on the sheer black cliffs. No Palawan cockatoos but he’d startled a monitor lizard trying to snap a butterfly with his phone. It was bigger than him, lumbered off shaking its head. Its bite could kill a water buffalo. Its saliva evolved over eons to cultivate flesh eating bacteria. A horrible death. Yes, beautiful, many birds, he said. He was studying a pamphlet of hotel services. Her eyes were too gentle to look at.
You have in-room massages here?
Yes, she said. I give. He suddenly got nervous.
It is OK, she said. I have a license, I am training–
Oh no, it’s good that it’s you.
Maybe you are shy sir?
Yes, he said. I guess so. He felt if she touched him she’d become unclean. But can I get one?
Yes, when?
Now?
She laughed again. You take a shower, in 30 minutes I come.
**
When she put her palm on his neck to apply lavender he felt like he was dissolving. She’d changed into a white uniform. Like she’d just won a high school karate tournament. Her ponytail tickled his back as she worked. She hummed and murmured. You have big muscles, sir, she said.
Thank you.
Back home, sir, what do you do for work.
Suddenly he was awake. Motherfucker, he thought. Even in the jungle. I uh, work in an office.
What kind of office.
It’s… marketing.
Marketing sir?
Yes, people who want to sell… products, we give them data.
Data.
You know what this is? Data?
You have information.
Yes. We give information to people who want to sell things.
Good money, she said. Your wife is happy, sir. Her hands slipped down his spine and she began rolling back the top of his underwear. Her hair tickled his legs and he was at peace again. I don’t have a wife, he said.
No wife, no baby?
No baby. You?
No baby, she said. Not yet. Girlfriend?
No girlfriend.
Her palm on top of his ass crack made his blood change direction. What kind of information, she said.
We have every kind. We buy everything you put in your computer. Your phone, everything from your credit card. We know everything about people and we put it together so… you know what ads are?
Yes sir.
We put it together so people can make better ads.
Do you like it?
I hate it.
Then why do you do it?
I need money. Where I live everyone has to work.
Mmm… I am working until I find a husband.
California husband?
Maybe if I am very lucky. Please turn over, sir.
He was hard but she didn’t seem to panic. Her fingers moved over his chest and the lizards squeaked on the ceiling. They are called “toko,” she said. Later he read they were endangered. Her face got close as she plied his collarbones and her breath was cool on his neck. So do you know things about everyone sir, she said.
Yes, we look at everybody.
Even the powerful men? The government and the movie stars?
I guess so. But it doesn’t matter, we collect– we have everything on everybody but we have to give it to another place before we look at it. Make it anonymous. A credit bureau. Do you know this, credit bureau? Equifax?
No sir.
You’re lucky.
You can’t look because it is the law?
Yes.
And you don’t break the law sir? Just to find out?
I mean– who cares, I don’t… who cares what some guy buys with his credit card.
You really don’t like it, she said. But I think you are strong to work hard at something you don’t like. The men here are not like this, sir. I think you will be a good husband, good father. When you are ready.
She looked in his eyes. He put his palm on her cheek, moved it to bring her face close to kiss him. Slid his other hand on her knee where she crouched, moved it up her thigh, warm under the white fabric. She laughed. A laugh that didn’t make him feel like an asshole for trying. Shifted away from him and made wrinkles in the comforter. It is not that kind of massage, sir.
I’m sorry–
It is OK, sir. I like you too. But if you want to know me like this, sir, you will first come to meet my father.
Wait, really?
Yes, he is near here. He is a fisherman.
Is he going to kill me for touching you?
Oh no, she said. I think you will like him sir. He is always asking to bring him a man like you.
Ghost Wedding
At night a burning star arced across the black sky to the north. Past the mountains. They were in what was once a back yard. Cinder block walls around the pool still half intact. Everything up high was gone but in the dips between the hills buildings still stood. Air mostly still and cold but once in a while a shrieking hot wind would spin the dead leaves, send them clattering against the concrete. It carried burned magazines. Excel printouts, emails marked HIGH IMPORTANCE. The pages spiraled around and hissed against the walls in the dark.
She’d been nervous about having a fire but there were still fires everywhere. The pool had a black sun cover; the water was clean and warm. They’d washed up and he’d looked away while she was naked. Checked the rashes on his arms. So far they hadn’t been sick. The star rose up fast and something else bright fell off it and twirled in a spiral; plummeted down somewhere to the east. They’re still launching, he said.
Why?
I don’t know, maybe the system just takes over.
Will they hit here again?
Maybe.
Can we eat something?
They had Activia. The fortune cookies. Half a case of Slim Jims and some Sunkist cans they’d found in the greasy black rubb
le of a Shell station. The charred cardboard Slim Jim case still had part of a sentence that ended: BRO CODE. He handed her three Original Flavors. Thought the words “Snap Into It” but didn’t say it. The pool furniture was burned so they sat Indian style on the concrete around the crackling palette wood. Flames so hot the nails were glowing. I can’t get the plastic off, she said.
Here– they make these fucking things–
The crenellated end of the Slim Jim plastic had a cut stamped in where you were supposed to tear it open. It had never worked once. He’d been eating Slim Jims for 35 years. He bit the ends off and handed the sticks back to her. Spitting out the plastic he could taste the grain the cattle ate. Salt warm around his tongue like the ocean. Oh my God it’s good, she said.
I know right?
She laughed. I hated these things before.
They’re a guy thing.
I wish we had a whole truck full of them now.
These might be the last ones there will ever be.
What he meant was the last time the cattle would hear their brothers screaming as they died. The last time a 20 year old out of Chiapas would walk out bleary eyed at sunrise after unpaid overtime. Five bucks an hour under whirling razor blades that made him deaf, hacking at bloody tendons twelve hours a night. Steam from boiling meat vats a mile wide burning his eyes, some convict up the line talking shit about stabbing him over a Spades game. Coming out at sunrise just as his wife left for her own shit job, swimming in reek down to his bones but used to it. The last machine that rolled the collected suffering of these living beings into a stiff brown stick that that made your breath stink. Popularized as a gas station impulse buy by Macho Man Randy Savage barking ART THOU BORED at children suffering existential ennui. Co-branded with the Tabasco line of sauces as part of a brand elevation campaign, along with Tabasco’s line of short sleeved button down shirts embodying the keyword zesty. XXXL the best seller– and you couldn’t even open the fucking package– he looked up and she was crying.
My mom is dead, she said.
I’m sorry–
My mama
I’m so sorry–
She took care of me when– when I got hurt. She held my hand. She would talk to me when he left me. I was 29 years old– she held my hand like a little girl– my dad
I’m sorry.
They’re all gone, my sister, oh my God, my sister…
Suddenly he remembered his mother’s hair and he was crying too. I’m alone, I’m alone, she was saying, and he reached over his camo compound bow and razor tipped feral hog arrows and held on to her palm and she let him. They cried for a long time. When they were done, she said Chad, too. That fucking asshole.
What happened.
He left me, she said. He left me because I said to quit his job.
What did he do.
He was gonna be rich, she said. He was gonna be rich and I didn’t care. He worked for a bank. He did acquisitions.
An M & A guy, he said.
She looked annoyed. Yes– he was. He talked people into selling their companies. He had a guy who was, like, a metallurgist. What he was working on was big. Chad took him on trips. They went to Vietnam– I think he cheated on me. We went skiing together. He was a genius. He made a new alloy, it was going to make bridges that didn’t collapse. The way you made it, something about the process– there was less pollution.
Oh wow, he said.
Chad was going to sell it to Gillette. They found out it made razor blades go dull faster. I told him to quit and he didn’t want to leave before the deal. And he said you don’t understand. If I don’t do it will be someone else. If we leave I’ll be a nobody. He meant like me. Like you– but I don’t want him to be dead.
She paused. What about you.
I had a mother. My dad was dead– it’s embarrassing–
Tell me.
I was alone already. I was sad before this. What I had to lose I lost already. I was a fucking failure.
Don’t say that–
I lived alone with my cat and a dog killed him. And I fucking had to apologize to my neighbors for abusing the dog after. My therapist told me. I do want them to be dead. I should have crucified that dog. I was trying to be a better person. It was a fucking mistake.
Did you have anything you loved?
I wrote, as a hobby. I wrote stories.
Were they published?
He laughed. Only interest I got was a rich guy who wanted me to write his OKCupid profile.
Did you?
Yeah. He met his wife from it. She was beautiful. A software guy.
Did you like what you wrote?
Good question.
She was quiet for a second. Tell me a story, she said.
He thought. Realized he had one. But when he looked up there was a man climbing over the wall with a gun in his hand.
**
He was standing with a hog arrow drawn back. The bow’s pull was smooth. It would add, he thought, at least +1 to attack and damage rolls. The man wore little glasses, had a salt and pepper beard. Bluejeans. Improbably he wore a polo shirt with Tabasco bottles on it. They were dancing with golf balls. The man was raising his revolver.
DON’T DO IT MAN, he said. He lined up the razor arrow tip with a hot sauce bottle. What do you want.
You guys have food, the man said. His eyes dipped to Marcy.
We can’t help you man.
I don’t mean any harm.
The fuck you don’t. Get the fuck out of here.
I just want to talk man. Please– but he kept looking at Marcy. Kept looking.
Are you fucking kidding me? You’re not taking her. Get out.
You got one shot with that bow man, I got six. I just want to talk.
He let go. His aim was off but the man started to scream. It turned into a sound like hot liquid pouring in a paper cup. His gun arm was limp and his other was flailing at the arrow shaft, planted in the top of his chest, to the left. Up to the fletching. Behind him on the cinder blocks a fat blood splatter. The arrowhead had pierced bone flesh and sinew, as advertised. The gun was on the ground. The man sat down. Just staring ahead.
You shouldn’t have come here man.
The man just stared and gurgled.
Marcy can you bring the bag.
What?
Can you please bring me the bag with the medicine, he said.
The man was half conscious as he unscrewed the arrowhead and pulled the shaft back out through hot blood. His eyes rolled back as he felt it. Marcy brought the bag. Listen to me he said. LISTEN– he grabbed the man’s chin. Waited for his eyes. Held up the jar of Fish Mox Forte Tropical Aquarium Amoxicillin. Shook out a handful of caps and dropped them in the Tabasco shirt pocket. TAKE THESE. TAKE THESE EVERY DAY.
He put down an Evian and an Activia. If I see you again I’ll kill you, he said.
**
They moved the tent to a back yard up the block. Agreed to sleep in shifts. The car might have been safer but it was easier to spot. He offered her the sleeping bag but she liked the blankets. It took a long while for him to calm down.
You were great today, she said. Thank you.
We have to get to Angeles Crest, he said. Away from people. Can’t trust anybody.
I know, she said. Are you OK?
One thing is bothering me.
What?
Tabasco branding with golf. Affluent males over 40 don’t– didn’t– drive household condiments.
It boosts casual fine dining use, she said. The guy goes to Applebee’s and asks for Tabasco.
Oh shit, you’re right.
We don’t have to think about that stuff anymore, she said.
Thank God.
What was the story you were going to tell me.
Well it’s not mine, he said. But I read this thing in the New Yorker. About this old Chinese woman in Brooklyn who got scammed out of her life savings. This woman had a son who was sick. These people, other Chinese people, came up saying they knew a witch docto
r. They said her son was in grave danger. He was suffering under a curse.
Go on.
To get rid of the curse the witch doctor had to take all the woman’s possessions and bless them. So she gave him all her cash and fine China and you know the rest. These women don’t call the cops because they feel too stupid. But what got me was the curse. It was from a ghost. The ghost wanted the son for a husband.
Holy shit.
Yeah. The son had a ghost attached to him. And this is common. Ghosts who die alone just wander in this netherworld, latching onto people. Chewing at their souls. Because the ghosts are lonely. Back in the old days, when this happened, they’d have a ghost wedding.
Really?
Yeah. You married a girl ghost to a boy ghost and they could be together in the afterlife. They’d be happy. But in modern times, the Cultural Revolution, they tried to wipe the traditions out. People forgot how to help the ghosts. So these angry, lonely, doomed ghosts just wander around lost. Fucking things up forever.
She rolled over a little. Leaned close to him. He could feel her breath on his neck as she got close. You know what, she said.
Yes?
I’m hungry again.
You want a fortune cookie?
Yeah.
He unscrewed the jar and handed her one. Took one for himself. Opened the clear plastic pouch and broke the cookie. Put half in his mouth, warm and crisp and sweet. Squinted at the little white paper. Pink letters. It said the greatest danger could be your stupidity.
Talk to Her for Me
On his 37th birthday he got an email. I love your OKCupid blogs, it said. Would you write my profile. Some messages. $500. Vlad.
He didn’t write for money. Instead he made cold calls for a real estate office in Rancho Cucamonga. I see the lease is almost up on your refrigerated warehouse. There’s a new property with rail spur. Specifically designed for meat storage, or citrus. If you meet your wife I get ten grand, he said. He was kidding, but Vlad said: done.
Vlad already had a profile. He was handsome. Had money. Said it was from software. The new way of saying your dad. Lived near the beach. Had a law degree. There was no reason Vlad had to hire someone to write OKCupid messages. Write OKCupid messages at all. But women like to be chased.
Finally, Some Good News Page 4